Greetings From Dogpatch 3: Nervous

Myra’s talking about the events from the One-Eyed Bear, if you have forgotten. She gave that horse skull to a demon.

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I am as confused as you, Ink. What sources is Kory basing this off of? Angels are not genderless in the sense that they’re transsexuals, or don’t like gender distinctions. They’re asexual. They’re not into dirty dancing with either gender.

If Gabe was rebelling against God (which I think he might be), there’s no way he would have been allowed to keep his angel status.

The only reason they’re referring to Gabe as he or she is because it’s hard to refer to someone with another pronoun. There is nothing suggesting Gabe prefers one gender over another. It’s just how other people are referring to Gabe.

I don’t think Gabe can be really rebelling against God if he follows many numerous religions and for all he knows the instincts that force him to do good actions come from some higher being.

With due respect to Kory, though, it’s literally impossible to follow every religion. All of them contradict each other. If you followed every religion, you’d be doing something wrong in each one, because you have not expressly followed said particular faith. Especially when some of those religions don’t believe in angels.

You know, in some religions, such as Hinduism, there is little to no concept of apostasy, heresy, blasphemy, or “doing it wrong.” I’d take that to mean it’s quite possible to follow every religion– or do the next best thing, and follow everything that matters from every religion. There is a great deal of crossover.

I admire your point, but I’m afraid it still doesn’t work. You are right in that they follow a conglomerate of religions, and declares that there is no absolute truth, but that is an absolute in and of itself. Everything is relative to them. As a result, Hindu families are generally not too happy if one of their kids converts to another religion.

So, if Gabe followed every religion, he would have to follow both monotheistic and polytheistic religions, which, on both sides of the coin, would get him in trouble. It’s sort of a logic bomb. But then again, maybe Kory’s pulling a Steven Moffat on us. ;)

Wearing symbols of every religion for protection is a far cry from observing their every stricture. If it comes to that, even within single religions there are contradictions that make full observation impossible (not to mention extremely annoying to anybody born less than 1500 years ago and almost certainly illegal in most civilized countries)

Given that monotheistic religions and polytheistic religions quite obviously believe in either one or many of *entirely different concepts* (what monotheists mean when we say “God” is something that, by definition, there *can’t* be more than one of), I see no reason why one can’t believe in both concepts.
Really, whose idea was it to use the word “god” for both? They have no similarities at all!

Well, if Gabriel’s been around since Creation (or even just since “Gabriel” was conceptualized), then he probably knows firsthand about a great many scriptures that can be safely discarded if you’re field-stripping a religion. Stuff put in by neo-fundamentalists and their ilk, justifying points that the source material doesn’t support, or things that are genuinely holy word but were never meant to be taken at face value. Strip all that out, and it probably gets a lot easier to reconcile different faiths.

You are confusing “Dogma” with “Religion”, I think. Dogma, simply put, is/are all the little rules and regulations made up/put up by the leaders of individual religions and even sects within the same religion.

Religion itself, is the overall set of beliefs as a whole, i.e. “We were created by an outside creative force (God, Allah, Jehovah, Gaia, The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.)”, “It is better for your immortal soul to treat others as you wish to be treated.” That one HAS an Immortal soul.

Many religions have the same/similar sets of beliefs. It’s the dogma that differs. So if Gabe is following just the beliefs, there is little conflict.

Also, Skin Deep is Kory Bing’s made up world: SHE makes the rules therein. So, wow, just relax!

Simply put, angels are 1001% inhuman. The human form is so alien to them you’re lucky Gabe has the right number of limbs.

Literally, angels are so unlike humans that in the myths, they always greeted humans with the phrase “Do not be afraid” because angels were supposedly utterly terrifying to behold, and that’s only the regular and archangels. Anything else, like the thrones or the virtues or the fucking Seraphim were so alien that they would probably break the mind of any mortal who viewed them.

According to the character page from Orientations… ‘He/She collects various religious artifacts and believes in all religions at the same time.’ I also seem to recall remembering it being mentioned that he wears a lot of symbols and jewelry as methods of good luck and for other mystical reasons. I think that the symbols all over Gabe’s jacket are just another one of these examples.

Looks like a veritable mish-mash. I can see various planetary and elemental symbols, some English runes, a Tai Chi (yin-yang), an Aum symbol, a pentacle, an ankh, a star of David, an eye of Horus, and the triqueta-and-circle adopted by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, which is supposed to indicate a confident and competent person. That might be the symbol for Scorpio cut off at the bottom, and there also appear to be two Christian ichthyi, one with feet. As for whether Gabe put them there, or just acquired the coat “as is”, your guess is as good as mine.

The triqueta also represents the Triple Goddess in Neopaganism and the Trinity in Christianity. Icthys is also spelled out in Greek below the elbow in panel three, at least three or four styles of Christian cross-

…aaand please tell me that I’m seeing this wrong. Is that a symbol for the Destruction school of magic in the Elder Scrolls games?

If you’re referring to the hand symbol thats almost directly below the mouth of the nightmare skull, it looks very similar to the symbol for the school of Destruction in Skyrim. Hopefully, the below link actually links to the wiki page on that school.

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